The opening minutes of the soccer game brought a quick goal, and Ruben Bres and the 15 guests who had joined him around his battered TV erupted in cheers. But they were happy not just for their team. They were happy they could even watch.

Until this season, Argentina’s ardent soccer fans needed cable to see Premier League games on TV and pay-per-view. Then, in a move analysts call shrewdly populist, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Government helped push Argentina’s soccer association to sever its long-term contract with the country’s biggest media group and broadcast free all games on a state-run station.

Now, about 20 million Argentines—half the population—watch top matches, more than four times as many as last season.

“When I saw the news on TV, I knew what it meant—football was coming into my home,” said Bres, 37, whose small cinder-block house is blocks from where Diego Maradona, coach of the Argentine national team and once one of the country’s greatest stars, grew up. “Politically, it was very intelligent. She’s going to get our vote.”

The deal with the Argentine Football Association gave a lift to a government whose popularity had plummeted since 2008, as Argentines turned against Fernandez de Kirchner’s economic policies. In June, her ruling coalition lost its majority in congressional elections. Her husband, Nestor Kirchner, who preceded her as President and still exerts immense influence over government policy, was trounced in his bid for a seat in the lower house.

The couple felt that their 2011 Presidential ambitions were in jeopardy. But soccer, long intertwined with politics here, presented them with an opportunity, said Carlos Fara, a Buenos Aires pollster.

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